The new Pollokshaws Cadillac show, number eight, is available to listen to, stream or download on Mixcloud here. There’s music from Sunset Gun, Nicky Murray, Cream, various Thompsons, the Lost Soul Band and more. Full playlist at the end of this newsletter.

On the fringes: that joke’s not funny anymore

Twenty-nine years ago I was, for one year only, comedy correspondent and general freelance fringe dogsbody for The Scotsman, then a print-only broadsheet newspaper of national importance. For the month of August, its daily Festival supplement made an attempt to review everything on the Fringe worth reviewing, and much that was not. So I, at that time BBC (Before Broadcasting Career) was unleashed on the world’s biggest eruption of embryonic egomania.

I had, at that point in my life, seen a total of two comedians live, both, during my Melody Maker years, in support slots in Glasgow’s The Fixx to up and coming local bands. One was the first ever Glasgow performance by Willie O’Hara, the man better known as Parrot, and the other was a ferocious Corrie-heavy show by Bing Hitler, alias Craig Ferguson. But that had been five years previously, before comedy became a compulsory drug for the masses and the Edinburgh Festival Fringe a dealer’s convention.

Feeling that my time had to be used constructively, if not exhaustingly, The Scotsman also sent me to write about the Lady Boys of Bangkok, the Television Festival and the Military Tattoo, none of which were particularly funny.The idea of a touring Lady Boys Tattoo was, but somehow no promoter ever actually took me up on that suggestion. In total, I think I saw 70 shows. My sense of humour never really recovered.

Only the ancient, oil-spouting Triumph motorbike I was using for transportation saved me from drinking myself into a state of numbness as dismal half-baked oneliners succeeded smartass sneering and patronising, sometimes threatening desperation. I mean, it was supposed to be a vintage year.,The League of Gentlemen, who I hated then and ever since, won the Perrier. Johnny Vegas did his onstage pottery and I saw him twice, once falling victim to his clay-and-wheel schtick just before the Perrier ceremony. I witnessed the boyish, fresher-than-fresh faced incarnation of Frankie Boyle – sweet, silly and anything but offensive. Or funny. Stewart Lee and Richard Herring, viciously and tediously targetted journalists with the kind of venom that reeked of a malevolent insecurity. A long way from the chortling pussycat Lee has become.

There were some delights. The first Still Game production was brilliant, and nominated by me for a Scotsman Fringe First award. I don’t think it won. Sean Hughes was mesmerising and, at the time, seemed relatively sober. Bill Bailey was already astonishing.And an early morning close-up magic show by Gerry Sadowitz remains one of the single greatest live performances I’ve ever experienced. In any genre.

Those were great times, in many ways. Freelances like me were paid properly, The Scotsman was a power in the land.I was lodging for three weeks with the late Bobby Campbell down on the fringes of Leith, and that was a delight in itself. Edinburgh was, and maybe still is, home to some of the finest pubs in the universe, and there were a few nights when the bike was abandoned so I could allow my publisher, also based in the city, to ply me with Deuchers IPA.

In the end, though, I was glad to escape back to Shetland, to ponder the nature of comedy. Or ‘comedy’? Was it even funny? My sudden and complete immersion in the stuff left me numb to stand-up for years. Only relatively recently have the likes of Kevin Bridges cut through to my funny bone, with even vintage Connolly sounding for a long time like the kind of pub conversation you only enjoy when you’re as drunk as the storyteller.

Because comedy is really a contract between performer and audience, with the listener or watcher having to give the comedian, willingly or unwillingly, authority over them. And after that summer in 1997, for me at least that joke wasn’t funny anymore.

Gunning for Sunset

As I mentioned earlier in the week on some of my socials, I’ve just discovered a hoard of cuttings from my two years or so working for Melody Maker between 1984 and 1986. Not one but two reviews of Sunset Gun, who kicks off this week’s Pollokshaws Cadillac. Quite a contrast in enthusiasm, and lack of it. I hope the band forgive me. There are quite a few regretted pieces of prose among the ones I’m happy to re-read. But then, 40 years ago I’m nicer now. I think. Mostly.

Listen to the Pollokshaws Cadillac here.

Playlist

Sunset Gun — Be Thankful (for what you got)

Lost Soul Band — Country Boy

River Detectives — King of the Ghost Train Ride

Talking Drums —Courage (12-inch remix)

Cycles — Sam Speirs

Blind Among the Flowers — The Tourists

The Hedgehog’s Song — The Incredible String Band

No Regrets (2010 Remaster) Midge Ure

John the Baptist — John Martyn & Beverley Martyn

In My Arms — Teddy Thompson

Dimming of the Day / Dargai — Richard & Linda Thompson

Call Me When It All Goes Wrong — The Rails

It May Be a Beautiful Sky Tonight but It’s Only a Shelter for a World at Risk — WIN

Scotland / Frosty Morning — Bongshang

Iron Sky — Paolo Nutini

Spoonful — Cream

Hearten — Nicky Murray

I Love This Life. — The Blue Nile

Linger and Go — David Heavenor